The Tech Brief

This week, the EuractivTech Brief podcast looks at the EU law on telecom infrastructures: the Gigabit Infrastructure Act.To find out how the legislation went from an European Commission proposal, amending the 2014 Broadband Cost Reduction Directive, to a Parliament's position on 19 September, and take a look at the upcoming interinstitutional negotiations with the Council of the EU, we spoke with Mr Alin Mituța, Member of the European Parliament and rapporteur of the text.

With Raffaele Zallone, expert on data privacy law, IT contracts, ecommerce, and Internet law and regulation and Thomas Duhr, vice-president of the German Digital Economy Association (BVDW), we discussed the effectiveness of the  GDPR enforcement on national level and how the newly adopted German National Data Strategy plays into that. By having a closer look at the automotive industry, we discuss digital uncertainties that are not covered by the EU's data protection regime.

This week's Euractiv’s Tech Brief Podcast looks at the specific business model of tower companies and their potential regulation under a new EU legislation: the Gigabit Infrastructure Act.

Germany's implementation of the EU's flagship cybersecurity legislation, NIS-2 will be fully integrated into national law by 17 October 2024. We caught up with Steven Heckler, Deputy Head of Department for Digitalisation and Innovation at BDI (Federal Association of German Industry) to talk about the positive and negative effects of the NIS-2 directive on Germany and about recommendations to ensure the necessary level of cybersecurity.

The proposed regulation aiming to prevent and combat online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) would make it a requirement for digital platforms in the EU to detect and report such material. The draft law is dividing people into either thinking it is about child protection or a violation of users’ privacy. We discuss the topic with MEP Paul Tang, who is one of the shadow rapporteurs for the file, and Emily Slifer, Director of Policy at Thorn, an NGO which was co-founded by actor Ashton Kutcher and is focused on detecting CSAM online.

The rise of generative AI models like ChatGPT and Midjourney AI, able to produce incredibly realistic content, poses an unprecedented challenge to the creative sector. We discuss what this new generation of Artificial Intelligence means for this sector and human creativity more generally with Tom Chatfield, tech philosopher and author.

The European Court of Justice recently ruled on a high-profile case with far-reaching consequences for enforcement in the fields of competition and data protection. We have discussed the verdict’s implications with Cristina Caffarra, renowned competition expert, and Johnny Ryan, senior fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.

The EU has been working on reporting obligations for private actors on actively exploited vulnerabilities and cybersecurity incidents in several legislative files while trying to establish mechanisms for sharing cyber threat intelligence, extremely sensitive information. We took stock of the different initiatives in this delicate area with Jo De Muynck, Head of Unit for Operational Cooperation at ENISA, and Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Director-General of DIGITALEUROPE.

Andrea Renda, a senior research fellow at the think tank CEPS, has worked on the EU’s AI Act since its conception, advised EU policymakers during the negotiations and is currently part of the discussions on the AI Code of Conduct in the context of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council. He provides an insider view on the main challenge this landmark legislation faces, points for improvement during the trilogues and technological trends policymakers should keep in mind.

The European Parliament’s recently adopted position on the AI Act includes requirements for foundation models. Kevin Klyman and Rishi Bommasani from the Stanford Center for Research on Foundation Models & Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence have published a preliminary assessment of to what extent the main foundation models comply with the AI rules. We discuss with them the main findings of their research, what provisions would be most challenging for AI developers to comply with and further improvements that could be made to the EU’s AI law.